Internal Referrals: The Cheat Code

Why Referrals Work Better Than Everything Else

Every piece of data on hiring confirms the same thing: referred candidates are hired at dramatically higher rates than cold applicants. Here are the numbers:

• Referred candidates are 5-8x more likely to be hired than cold applicants.
• Referrals account for 30-50% of all hires at most companies, despite being a small fraction of total applications.
• Referred candidates move through the hiring process 55% faster than non-referred candidates.
• The average time-to-hire for a referred candidate is 29 days, compared to 55 days for a job board applicant.

For international candidates, referrals are even mor...